The FCC May Change How the Internet Works, Which Sucks For You

At the moment, your Internet generally works like this: You pay a company — AT&T, or Comcast, or Verizon, or Time Warner — for monthly online access. Once you’re connected, you can go to whatever legally permissible website your heart desires and, whether it’s the New York Times or Netflix, it takes you the same amount of time no matter where you’re trying to go. Read more.

Access is equal; that’s the principle of “net neutrality,” the concept that all Internet traffic should be treated equally.

But the Federal Communications Commission is on its way to dismantling that concept entirely. The Commission, which has spent the better part of the past decade trying to define “fairness” on the Internet, said on Wednesday that it would propose new rules that would allow companies like Disney, Google and Netflix to pay Internet service providers for faster lanes to send video and other content to consumers.

[…]

“A free market based on competition and entrepreneurship depends on the ability for anyone to bring the next great product, idea or innovation to the marketplace,” Casey Rae, the interim executive director of the Future of Music Coalition said in a press release. “A society that respects its creators must not place access to culture in the hands of just few massive companies. These proposed rules not only don’t go far enough to safeguard consumers, they actively marginalize smaller and independent voices.” Read more.